


Boys of Fall

by amosanguis



Series: horror [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, Bonds of Convenience, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mention of Suicidal Actions By OC/Non-Main Characters, POV Alternating, Pre-Canon, Season/Series 01, Socially Acceptable Cannibalism, Suicidal Thoughts, Title from a Country Song, Vaguely Dystopian But Everyone's Happy, casual horror, implied sexual favors for protection from said ritual cannibalism by underage characters, ritual cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:05:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Steve is fifteen the first time he sees what happens to kickers who don’t make the field goal.





	Boys of Fall

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title from song of the same name by Kenny Chesney  
> \--Please, please, please read the tags. I think I got everything, and the fic itself isn't really as serious as the tags imply, but - yeah. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page and people don't walk into this without a hint of what they're in for.  
> \--SO MANY THANKS TO IONTHESPARROW FOR HER HELP WITH THIS - IT WAS HER IDEA AND I CAN'T THANK HER ENOUGH FOR ENCOURAGING ME!

-z-

 

 **_Kicker (K)_ ** _– The kicker is responsible for kickoffs and field goals. They are strong-legged players who can kick accurately from a tee on kickoffs and from a holder on field goals. Because of the smaller physique of kickers, teams have three protection strategies when it comes to this breed:_

  1. _Invest in two to three kickers and keep them separated from teammates – typically in an expansive kickery (see chapter 2:_ From Rookery to Kickery, how to feed and house a kicker _) – especially tackles, guards, and linebackers, who will instinctively attack and eat failing kickers._
  2. _A protection bond is established between the kicker and a teammate in another position, typically a **cornerback (CB)** or a **tight end (TE)**. It’s rare, but occasionally a **quarterback (QB)** will establish a protection bond; the most notable example of which is Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers (QB) and Mason Crosby (K) (see Rodgers, Aaron [pp 321-345]; or Crosby, Mason [pp 344, 367])._
  3. _Allow kickers to be free range on the understanding that should they begin to fall below the team’s standards, there will be no intervention should they be attacked. This is the most common and accepted strategy._



_–_ **Football 101: Football Positions & Their Roles**

 

-x-

 

Steve is fifteen the first time he sees what happens to kickers who don’t make the field goal.

He knew what happened to them, everyone _knows_ what happens to them, but it’s the first time that Steve’s seen and scented and heard it.

There’s nothing he can do about it, though. This is just the way things are. All he can do is take some solace in the fact that young tackles playing high school football don’t have to eat as much as their college- and pro-counterparts, that this should be the only kicker they lose all year.

 

-x-

 

Danny is sixteen and he’s watching as the ball spins and it’s veering too far to the left and it’s not gonna make it in. The crowd makes only a low groan as they watch the ball bounce off the outside of the post. They, and Danny, know what’ll happen next.

From his own sideline, Danny hears a growing rumble – like thunder coming in off the ocean.

But Danny refuses to hang his head, clenches his fist to stop his hands from shaking, and as he walks back to the sideline – where glowing eyes and snapping jaws await him – he forces himself to stand tall and meet them all head on.

If they wanted him, they were going to have to beat him.

 

 

They come for Danny as soon as they hit the locker room and Danny ducks and spins away, drops down low so they’re falling over themselves, biting and clawing at each other instead. If he could survive the next few minutes, if he could wait out the tackles’ bloodlust, he could make it through the night.

Survival was what Eddie Williams made sure Danny’d been prepared for – Eddie had forced Danny to work hard and then work even harder than that; taught Danny how to move through his exhaustion and pain with speed and precision. The training had been hell. But the concession to complete the training had been the only way Danny could convince his parents to let him play, much less play his natural position as a kicker.

If Danny ever slipped during training, Eddie would scream: “Don’t fall,” with a desperate and manic edge to his voice, jerking Danny back upright by the collar of his shirt, “you fall – even for a second, boy – and you’re dead. Do you hear me? _You’re dead_.”

And, oh, all that training and all that screaming – it was paying off now.

Where his teammates were exhausted from a grueling game and crushing loss (something that not even Danny’s missed field goal could have prevented), Danny was finding his second wind.

 

 

He escapes that night.

 

 

Then there’s another field goal missed and he escapes again. Then there’s a third miss and a third escape. It gets to the point that he can’t even walk close to the tackles – they associate his very presence with missed goals, and with Danny’s unique ability to outmaneuver them at every turn – they also associate him with missed meals, and it rachets up their already natural aggression towards him.

The coaches try to urge him to seek a protection bond with a linebacker, called only by his last name of Vincenzo, who was only a shade less surly than his counterparts. Danny had snorted and said, “No, thanks. I, uh, I think I’m good.”

With Danny’s next missed field goal, he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that that tight end the coaches had tried to bond him with is the first to lunge for Danny – not even waiting until the rest of his line had come in from off the field.

It turns out to be one of Danny’s hardest nights, one of his closest calls as Vincenzo closes in quick – tackling Danny around the waist and slamming him hard to the ground. He growls and bares his teeth and he’s going in for Danny’s shoulder before Danny’s fist is flying out, connecting hard into Vincenzo’s jaw – and Danny feels the bone snap under his knuckles.

Vincenzo roars in pain and rears back and Danny doesn’t hesitate – he slides out from under the linebacker, before ducking out of the reach of another teammate. He starts for the doors, but then Vincenzo’s got him again and he’s dragging Danny down.

Danny feels teeth on him, coming from everywhere, teeth in his calves and his thighs and his shoulders; he feels his own blood running hot down his skin.

 _Don’t fall_ , he tells himself, over and over and over. _Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall_.

Danny screams as he feels himself starting to go down under the weight of his teammates – he thinks he screams for his dad, for his mom – but then he forces all of that away and he forces himself back up and he’s still screaming as he begins to shove off the teammates still chewing at him. His fists and feet fly until there’s no one holding onto him, until Vincenzo’s not the only one with a broken jaw.

The tackles are the first to stand back up, to sway towards Danny – but Danny meets their eyes and he roars a challenge his breed isn’t known for. The tackles answer with a small snarl and a shake of their head, before they turn and limp away – trying to maintain as much of their dignity as they can.

With the tackles gone, the guards, and linebackers, even Vincenzo, follow.

 

 

Every Monday Danny shows up to school after he’s missed a field goal on Friday his reputation increases. There were rumors about who it was he’d bonded to, which of the team was protecting him – there were a lot of bets on the quarterback (but Danny knew how flaky QBs could be – they were fickle in their loyalties to anyone who wasn’t one a wide receiver; only those who’ve never played could ever think a QB could establish a good enough protection bond with a kicker). When Vincenzo’s name comes up, Danny had laughed.

It’s forty degrees out on the Monday Danny shows up to school covered with bites and bruises, wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off the wounds. When he runs into his teammates in the hall, he looks them in the eye and silently dares them to finish the job.

They just look away – not from guilt or shame, those weren’t the emotions that belonged in football, but from hunger. They couldn’t take Danny here, not without turf beneath their feet. It was an arbitrary line drawn by society, but if it was all Danny could have – all the power he could ever wield over his teammates – he was going to take advantage of it in anyway he could.

 

 

A hundred colleges knock on his parents’ door – and he knows the real reason they’re knocking, and it has nothing to do with Danny’s skills as a kicker.

 

-x-

 

Steve gets sent to the mainland and he’s not sure how – but the laws of football here are even more brutal than the ones on the island.

 

 

Steve’s a senior quarterback the first time a kicker sidles in close, a purr in the back of the kicker’s throat.

The coaches had told him that it was well within a kicker’s rights to seek out protection, that one of them may come to him for seeking that bond and that it was up to Steve to decide whether or not he’d accept the role.

“Remember,” coach had said, his finger raised, “only accept if you are _sure_ – absolutely _sure_ – you can handle it. This is someone’s life we’re talkin’ about here and they’re puttin’ it in your hands.” Coach had gone on to say that if Steve, or anyone else, who had began a protection bond with a kicker tried to back out at the last second, tried to abandon the kicker, they themselves would be the ones who were eaten. Disloyalty and cowardice were not tolerated here.

Steve swallows, looks down at where the kicker’s fingers are brushing over the back of Steve’s wrist.

He thinks about what his dad would say (“They knew what they were getting into; if they didn’t want to face it, they should’ve picked another sport. I hear baseball’s nice.”). He thinks about what Mary would say (“Help him, Steve, goddammit.”). He thinks about what his mother would say— he stops thinking.

Steve swallows again and his voice shakes a little as he says, “I’m sorry,” and steps away. He couldn’t handle a protection bond – he’d read what it’d done to people in the past, the ones who weren’t able to protect their kickers, and he just – he couldn't do it.

He couldn’t do it.

 

 

He never learns the kicker’s name – honestly, what would be the point? – but he still forces himself to watch when, during the second-to-last game of the season, the boy misses the field goal and pays the price.

Steve watches the light go out of the kicker’s eyes just before a tackle moves and blocks the view, jostling the others for better access to tastier meats.

At this point, Steve knows better than to feel guilty.

 

 

Steve keeps waiting for an injury – for _anything_ to take him out of football.

But it never happens.

He wonders at his disappointment.

 

 

He joins the Navy and swears to never stand by again. Then he meets Freddie and a bond settles between them, it’s solid and wonderful and thrums happily with their friendship. There was nothing desperate about it – Freddie himself had been a wide receiver in high school and it was only natural for him and Steve to instantly connect.

The bond fizzles after a few years – a natural disintegration as Freddie gets serious with his new girl. Steve would have been upset if he wasn’t so happy for Freddie.

But then he’s covered in Freddie’s blood and there’s gunfire ringing in his ears and Steve wants to scream as a part of himself reaches blindly for the bond that hasn’t been there for weeks – for months, if he’s being brutally honest with himself.

 

-x-

 

Danny goes to college, but he doesn’t play football. The coaches still seek him out, usually bringing one of the quarterbacks, or a running back or fullback, to try to woo Danny onto the team.

Danny always just grins at them and says, “I made it through high school with one of the worst records of all time for my position, what makes you think I’m going to try to push my luck? You think this guy,” Danny gestures to the running back – a tall, but thin young buck, “is going to be able to protect me? The answer is no – no, he cannot. Please stop asking, okay? I don’t want to be anyone’s lunch. I’m done. I made it through high school. I’m done, now, thank you, bye-bye.”

 

 

Danny likes being a cop – he loves it.

He runs into the occasional ex-tackle who’s still got a taste for kickers, who will catch Danny’s scent and start snapping his teeth – but, out here, in this world that exists off of the gridiron and its painted turf, all Danny has to do is flash his badge and a smirk and order them to stand down. It’s a thrill that Danny can’t help but revel in.

 

 

Danny makes detective and he celebrates with Rachel and his family, just as he’s taking a shot of what he thinks is whiskey, when an old coach comes out of the dark.

For an instant, the world halts and Danny’s dad goes to stand, to intercept, but the coach just waves him down.

“I’m just here to say congratulations,” the coach says. “I heard about—” he waves his hand “—I’m not here to bring you back or anything. They’re changing the rules about that.”

Danny nods; he’d been one of the signatures on the petition.

The public may not have cared much about kickers’ blood pooling on locker room floors after a game, but they cared what happened once that kicker made it out. The general consensus was that once a kicker had done their time, had made it out, they couldn’t be forced back in – not as a coach or liaison or whatever other faux title was given before they inevitably disappeared.

Some kickers, though, those who maybe hadn’t expected to make it, hadn’t had any plans outside of football – those who were left wandering, some of them volunteered to go back in. They would play on practice squads and they would miss field goals intentionally – just to get the tackles riled, then in the locker room, they’d wander in close and alone, no protection.

Teams didn’t do anything to dissuade this, of course; if a suicidal kicker wanted to feed their tackles and it didn’t cost the team anything? If it let the team keep their own (paid) kickers safe for one more game? One more practice? Well, who were they to argue anything at all?

“Thanks,” Danny says to his once-upon-a-time coach before he offers him a beer.

 

 

Before the divorce is finalized, Danny wonders if it’d be easier to walk into the Jets locker room and hold his arms open and beg for death.

But then he remembers Gracie and the way she smiles at him and he knows he can’t.

A year later and he’s landing in Hawai’i and Danny wonders if the ban on eating kickers during the Pro Bowl was ever lifted.

 

 

Danny hates Hawai’i and he hates Rachel and he hates the man standing across from him, pointing his gun and shouting orders at Danny like he’s the king of this little rock. Danny wants to scream and punch and maybe maim – and, when they get close enough to scent each other, Danny knows why.

Quarterback.

 

-x-

 

Steve growls.

A kicker.

One who’d not only made it out, but had survived a career change, too. Detective Danny Williams was the rarest amongst his breed and Steve finds himself immediately intrigued.

He only realizes he’s still growling when Danny snaps at him, “Knock it off.”

Surprising both of them, Steve’s body instantly cuts off the growl at Danny’s demand. Their eyes widen and they stare comically at each other.

“ _Knock it off_ ,” Danny snarls.

“I’m not doing anything,” Steve snarls right back – or, _tries_ to, but he can’t seem to raise his voice or initiate a growl. He covers it up by calling the governor and accepting her taskforce and stealing the case right out from under Danny – Williams, Detective Williams – the man in front of him he definitely hasn’t bonded with because who bonds that fast? Not Steve McGarrett. Nope.

Or maybe yes, because Steve’s in his vehicle and he’s driving away as fast from his father’s home as he can when a migraine slams into him – forcing him to stomp hard on his brakes as his hands fly to his head and a scream rips from his lungs, all as he feels something pulling him back towards the house.

 

 

He doesn’t know how he makes it back to his father’s house, but Danny is still there, his forehead against the roof of his car as he messages his temples. He doesn’t even look up at Steve as Steve leans against the car beside him.

“Goddamn quarterbacks,” Danny mutters. “Didn’t they teach you how to avoid bonds in this fuckin’ hellhole? Surely they taught you somethin’ in the damned Army—"

“I was in the Navy,” Steve says, his voice quiet despite his desire to shout, “and bonds go both ways. You can’t force a one-way bond. Even you have to know that that’s not how that works.”

“I _don’t_ _have to know_ that that’s how that works,” Danny snaps, finally looking at Steve. And Steve knows before Danny even says, says it at the same time Danny does: “I’ve—”

“—You’ve never bonded—”

“—Bonded before. That’s right, McGarrett, look at us. Ain’t even shook hands yet and here we are: thinking our thoughts together.”

Steve sighs, still feeling that pull and he finally gives into it: lets himself slouch down and lean against Danny. He feels Danny’s initial reaction to push Steve away and he also feels Danny decide to simply lean into the touch.

“Fuck,” they say at the same time.

 

 

Steve follows Danny into HPD to get Danny’s things and, really, he thinks Danny should’ve said something about the ex-tackle who works here before they walked in because now Steve’s got his gun out and he’s roaring for Kawehi Kale, a defensive tackle who Steve used to play with and who Steve has personally seen eat two kickers, to step back, back, back, get on the ground, get away from Danny—

And then it’s Danny he’s pointing his gun at as Danny steps between Steve and Detective Kale, Danny who’s speaking slow and calm, talking Steve down as he runs his hands over Steve’s hands, over Steve’s forearms and biceps and shoulders – just, just touching him and talking to him. Distracting him. Giving Kale enough time to slip out of the room.

Later, Danny tells him that Kale shouldn’t have been there – that Danny had thought that Kale had been sent undercover and shouldn’t have been back until the end of the week.

“But, hey,” Danny says, smirking, “that was very flattering, babe, we’ve known each other all of three hours and you’ve already threatened someone for me. That’s very nice of you, thank you.”

Steve snorts at being called _babe_ , ignores the way it makes him feel warm over their bond. “Don’t get used to it,” he says, even though they both know it’s a lie.

 

 

The protection bond settles between them easily, as easily as if they were still young and playing the game together. Danny tells him it’s because they’re partners, that it’s the high-stress situations they’re always in (and that that’s always Steve’s fault, of course; “Of course, Danno,” Steve had replied, just to feel that hum of fond annoyance from Danny’s side of the bond).

They try not to do anything to further the bond, to make it escalate.

But time and adrenaline and things like Steve watching Danny slide down to the ground, coughing as he says, “I can’t breathe, Steve, I can’t breathe” – things like that do a lot to change a situation.

 

-x-

 

Danny feels Steve walking into the hospital’s front doors – it’s what wakes him up. So he rings for his nurse or his doctor or whoever it is that’s gonna answer this call button, and tells them that he wants his partner and his daughter in here as soon as they get onto his floor.

And when Steve walks in with Grace, when he looks softly at Danny and asks, “How you feelin’?” it takes the wind right out of Danny’s sails, makes him sag against the pillows of his hospital bed.

“Like everything hurts,” Danny says, even as he pushes all of his gratitude and building love across the bond at Steve, watches as Steve’s breath hitches and he sways backwards from it all.

Then Steve is reciprocating and he’s pushing all he feels right back at Danny and, _Christ_ , it washes away all the pain Danny feels. Then Steve is leaning against the foot of Danny’s bed and he says, “Since you’re lookin’ so good, I’m gonna head back to the office.”

And Danny smiles softly right back at Steve and nods – feels the vengeance Steve’s promising thrumming across the bond.

 

 

After that, after Danny’s discharged, Steve picks him up and takes Danny back to Steve’s.

Danny’s spent nights here before, when the bond first took, before he and Steve could spend any time and distance apart, before the touching meant anything other than a means to an end: if they could cement the bond and get it stabilized, then Danny could spend nights in his own home – something he’d been desperate for. But tonight. Tonight was different. This time, the intent behind the touches is more than just for a quick and efficient orgasm – this time they were going to make it last, this time it meant so much more. It’s frantic and desperate between them, their bond vibrating and overstimulated and it’s all either of them can do to hold on.

Danny wonders what it would’ve been like – if they’d met each other on the field, if this bond would have settled between them right away. He wonders if he’d had let it (he wouldn’t have, he knows he wouldn’t have; and it was likely neither would Steve).

He stops thinking about it as soon as Steve’s teeth sink into the back of his neck, gripping him, holding him place – as if Danny would ever think of leaving.

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
